The View From Who I Was (16 page)

Twenty-Five

From Oona's journal:

In German, the spinal column is known as the spiral column, and vertebrae are known as vertices. All this is related to vertical movement. A mirror of the DNA molecule, which determines the human body.
It is the path energy wants to take.

—Viktor Schauberger

Sugeidi set a sliced brisket on the dining room table, its barbecue sauce in a gravy boat beside it. Mashed potatoes, corn, salad—comfort food. She rested her knuckles on her hips, took in the meal and then Corpse, Dad, and Mom. Her eyes said
Now you all behave
,
but only Corpse's seat faced her.

Dad cleared his throat and reached for the brisket. “Thank you, Sugeidi,” he said, but she didn't leave. He looked over his shoulder at her. So did Mom. Their eyes had a conversation:

Sugeidi: You two need to straighten up.

Mom: She's right.

Dad: You're the maid.

Sugeidi: I'm not afraid of you.

Dad: There's nothing wrong with me.

Mom: Like hell.

Sugeidi: See what I mean?

Sugeidi's gaze traveled to Corpse, and Dad's and Mom's followed it. “Oona hike today. On the trail she died.”

“Thanks, Sugeidi.” Corpse sent her a glare but found pride on Sugeidi's face and the trace of a smile. Sugeidi had watched her return, Corpse realized, saw her swinging arms and light step. Sugeidi was showing Dad and Mom that their recently dead daughter was handling things better than they were. I sensed she was also reminding Corpse to be strong on this sad night.

“I thought returning there would suck,” Corpse said. “But it was fine.”

“Why did you go?” Dad said.

“Because some things you just have to face.” She gave him that truth stare.

He concentrated on and reached for the mashed potatoes. Corpse remembered William taking a bite of potatoes. I worried Dad might smash the bowl with his gaze.

Sugeidi snorted and left.

“She's getting bold,” he said.

Mom and Corpse looked at each other. Corpse scooped corn onto her plate, the steadiness of her right hand making her smile.

“What made it
fine
?” Mom said.

Corpse shrugged. “I expected to feel out of control or depressed or something. To relapse, you know? But I just couldn't get myself to feel that bad.” She laughed. “I really tried. I just couldn't. I mean, it's so awful about Ash. The guilt presses … ” Her hand rose to her chest. “But—”

“I know what you mean.” Mom sighed. “It's a strange feeling. Survival, I guess.”

Dad stared at his food.

“Poor Ash,” Corpse said. “I seriously wanted to kill myself and failed. She just wanted attention and—”

Dad flinched
.

“How are you faring, Tony?” Mom said, totally nice. I had to admire her.

He shrugged. “Fine.”

“That's great,” she said.

“What?” Dad said.

“Nothing.” Mom picked up her fork and knife. “I'm glad you're
fine
.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Mom tucked a bite of brisket into her mouth.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” She smiled at him as she chewed.

It occurred to me that she'd crossed a boundary, couldn't care less how he was doing, and the same realization took over Dad's face.

“We should have Gabe and Frank to dinner soon,” Mom said.

“Frank?” Dad said.

“Gabe's father,” Mom said.

Corpse said, “Did you know Gabe's dad fixed our front wall when that car drove into it?”

Mom's eyes twinkled. “Then we really must have him over.”

Dad watched her with calculating eyes.

“Sounds great.”
User
echoed in Corpse's head. “Do either of you know what happened to the crown I was wearing the night I died?”

“Crown?” Dad said.

Mom pressed her lips and shook her head.

Discomfort stole the room's air. There was only the sound of silverware against plates. The day's weight, the weight of the whole last few months, settled over them.

Corpse assessed Mom and Dad. Bodies braced against one another. “Blimey!” she said.

“What?” Dad and Mom said.

“Sugeidi's right,” Corpse said. “You two need to shape up. I mean, look at you.”

Mom looked at Dad and down at the fork clenched in her fist. Her head dropped and she laughed. “Thank you, Oona. And Sugeidi,” Mom called over her shoulder.

“Come on, Dad. Smile once in a while. It won't kill you.”

His eyes widened, turned jittery. He started nodding. He didn't talk after that, just concentrated on his plate. So annoying. Mom and Corpse marveled at the packed memorial service and Crystal Village's support of Ash's family.

“Such a tragic thing. Ash's parents will carry this burden the rest of their lives.” As Mom wiped tears with her napkin, her face seemed weighed down with lost things. I heard her blaming herself that day in her Range Rover, and Corpse started crying.

“So much for feeling okay,” Mom said.

Dad eyed them like ruins. I turned mad.

“Have you ever cried for anything, Dad?”

His fist banged the table, rattling the plates and silverware. He stood.

“Have you?” Corpse said.

His inky glare swung between them.

“Say something!” Corpse said.

He straightened, inhaled half the room's air through his teeth, and left.

Corpse groped along the windowless wall toward the observatory. Darkness pressed against her. The wall ended, so she stopped, listening for Dad's breaths or the clink of ice in his highball glass. The tiny lights over the built-in bar that usually illuminated the room like a dream were dark, and for once that woman wasn't singing. Corpse waited. After a few minutes she discerned the room's contours in the stars' dim glow.

She entered the observatory, imagining Dad listening, yet she avoided words. She reached the arm of his recliner and stood over him. He slept. We'd rarely seen him sleeping, and her eyes traced his brow's relaxed lines, his parted mouth, his unclenched jaw. Until we'd tried to kill ourself, he'd been like a king. Distant, hard-edged, and unquestioned. Mom had been the evil witch. How had we been so blind?

Dad whimpered. Corpse had never imagined he could whimper. He whimpered again, and though his breath reeked of alcohol, in her eyes he transformed to that boy. She lifted the highball glass from the loose hand on his belly and set it on the end table next to her. I remembered that hand banging the dining room table. He wasn't as big as Gabe, and she considered that maybe each of us was just a kid, playing at being adult.

This made Corpse crawl over the recliner's arm and stretch herself along Dad. I came down close, despite my dark memory of him. He stirred as she nestled in. She put her arm on his arm and matched her breaths to his. She watched the stars till she slept.

“Muriel?” Dad said.

I shot to the ceiling.

“Oona,” Corpse said, eyes closed, reaching back toward sleep.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Snuggling.”

I warned her, but she yawned.

“Oh.” His face assumed its daytime lines.

“Don't, Dad.”

“Don't what?”

“Why can't you just snuggle?” Corpse rubbed her drowsy eyes.

“I'm snuggling right now,” Dad said.

“Were. You've turned to edges,” she said.

She felt him try to relax. He fidgeted his legs, his arms. She finally said, “Why is this so awful for you?”

“It's not awful.”

“Today at Ash's memorial, you wiped off the feel of holding my hand on your pants.”

“I did not.”

“I watched you. So did Mom.” She moved her head from Dad's chest to the recliner's edge, making space between their faces so she could see him.

He snorted.

“Don't pick on Mom. She's got it hard.”

“Hard? She's richer than—”

“Money doesn't matter, Dad.”

He gave her a piercing look. “You have a great life, Oona. You want for nothing.”

Corpse shook her head fast. “Right.
Nothing
. Just love.”

“Love? Oona, this is—” He started to rise, but she moved faster and sat with all her weight on his belly.

“We can't go on like this! Our family is dying!”

Dad collapsed back. She could feel his breathing's rise and fall beneath her. She braced herself and said, “I'm begging. You're the key.”

He went limp, and I felt sick at her words but also felt their truth. He turned his head to the wall. Ash's death pressed down on them like an ultimatum.

“Oona, I … ”

“What, Dad?”

“I'm trying. Really, I am.” He ran his pinky and ring finger across his brow. His words rushed out. “I love you. Okay?” Pain ruled his face.

Corpse's mouth dropped open, and then she smiled. “I love you too.” Easy, those words. Before I knew it, she said, “Why do you spend every night in this room? Alone? Instead of with Mom? Or me? Or both of us? Like a family?”

“Your mother—”

“Yes, I'm sure she's done things, but Dad, since I died, life's gotten clearer each day. It's like I see my world now through a microscope. All these invisible things that were going on. You're afraid of something. That's what's keeping you from trying.”

His eyes flickered, and I saw she was right and he knew it. It scared me even more. “You've never even made pancakes.”

Confusion filled his face, but then the kitchen was there in his frown.

“Dad,” she said. “I forgive you.”

His brows pressed together and he tried to massage them apart. “Forgive?” His breathing turned shallow and fast.

“I want to go on a trip with you for spring break,” Corpse said.

“A trip?”

“Yes. To Portugal. I need you to try with this one thing. Can you do this one thing?”

“Yes, but Portugal, Oona.” He shook his head, eyes black. Corpse took it for confusion.

She sifted her words. “Those kids from the Indian school, some of them have it so hard. But they have their
people
. Sugeidi has her
people.
Gabe has his
people.
You know? Maybe you just need to return to
your people.
”

“No!” He heaved to the side and out of the recliner, tossing Corpse over its arm.

“Okay,” she said. “But I'm going. Mom's family is hateful. I want to see where you come from, find your family. I wish you'd come with me.”

Dad looked like a cornered animal, but she walked to him. “Be strong,” she said. “Right here.” She put her hand over her heart like Sugeidi.

He turned away. Corpse moved to the door but looked back. His shoulders had such an odd set. I wished we knew more about his past. Corpse returned, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his back. He tensed, but she held on.

“It'll be okay, Dad,” she said.

His body seemed poised to cry, yet no tears came. How long ago had Dad become desert? At the bar's tap, Corpse filled a highball glass with water. She carried it to him.

“Here,” she said. “Don't worry. You can do this. I'll help you.”

Twenty-Six

From Oona's journal:

Water is more than just fluid, it is alive. It is healthiest when it curves and it often needs to spiral. The spiral is essential to water's health. The vortex cools it and the circular motion purifies.

—Viktor Schauberger

Gabe and Corpse strolled along the bike path. Crystal Creek murmured from between gaps in the March ice. They'd tried holding hands, but the cold bit their skin, so they walked with their hands in their pockets. Their breaths hung over them like dialogue bubbles in a comic strip, forcing me above their fog.

A mom, dad, and two boys came toward them, the two boys yelping and running ahead to pelt each other with snowballs. Corpse reached down and scooped some snow, formed it into a loose ball; its crystals were too cold for good adhesion. She stopped, but Gabe kept walking. She nailed him between the shoulder blades.

“Hey!” He arched his back. He spun, darted to the path's side, scooped snow, and pelted her on the hip.

She bounded for cover over the pile of plowed snow and ducked. Gabe catapulted over the mound. Through me.

He paused, brow furrowed, as his determined goodness filled me.

He lurched forward. Corpse squealed, and he flattened her into the snow. But I'd given him such a sad expression.

Corpse squirmed and laughed. He grinned at that and put his lips on hers. I tried to gather myself. First Corpse, then Roberta. Then Dad. Now this? Each lingering touch a window to understanding I did not want.

“Where'd they go?” one of the boys shouted.

“They're
kissing
,” the other said, disappointed.

“Ew!” said the first.

Gabe pulled back and kneeled. Corpse sat up, cheeks flushed, and glanced at the boys. Gabe rose and looked toward the river. He held out his hand and pulled Corpse to her feet. She wiped snow off her jeans.

“This way,” he said and started walking toward a bench on the riverbank that sat beneath a giant spruce's skirt of sheltering branches.

Beyond the good, determined thing I'd felt was something else, and it spread through me like a drop of food coloring into a pool, so calming and comforting. I realized it was love.

They post-holed to their knees with each step, but it wasn't far. Corpse was glad her jeans were tucked into her snow boots. Gabe had on just the sneakers we'd given him. Did he even own snow boots? Corpse glanced back. The boys were gone, but their parents' shoulders and heads moved along the bank.

The river grew louder. Gabe and Corpse stepped out of the snow onto pine needles that cracked beneath their feet. The smell of sap and cold enveloped them. Corpse breathed deep, her nostrils freezing together for a second, and she scanned the landscape through the spruce's bows. She thought how Ash would never see beauty like this again. I was basking in love.

“Poor Ash,” Corpse said.

“Enough sadness,” Gabe said. “Tell me something … ” I could tell “happy” didn't seem like the right word. “Not sad,” he said. My effect, trapped in the pucker around his eyes, just about killed me.

“Remember that crown I wore at the winter formal?” Corpse said. “When I woke up in the hospital, it was gone. It was Ash's crown. Remember? What do you suppose happened to it? Do you think I could still have been wearing it when I got to the hospital?”

Gabe's eyes dulled. “Something
not sad
.”

“Well, I'm on the pill now.”

“That's very not sad
.
” He slid his arms around her.

Corpse laughed. “You should have seen Mom. She insisted on driving me to and from her gynecologist, and she couldn't stop smiling. It creeped me out.”

Gabe cracked up.

“Mom's a big fan of you,” Corpse said, and her face fell. “She's so unhappy, Gabe. I don't know how she's stayed with Dad all these years.” She paused, hearing how she'd just blamed Dad
.
“She's starving for love.”

“Yes,” he said. “The first time I met her, it showed.”

“Really?”

“Really. Guys aren't
that
dumb,” he said.

“Some guys,” Corpse said. “
I
was that dumb.” She kissed his neck. His hair had outgrown its cut, and she liked how it curled at the ends.

“So we could do it? Right here? Right now?” Gabe said.

Corpse surveyed the trail, where the two boys had peered over the bank, and she pulled a face. “Sometime at night, maybe.”

“Deal,” he said and led her to the bench.

They sat, and he wrapped his arm around her. She leaned her head against his letter jacket. “Here's another not sad thing: Mom's a fan of your dad too.”

Gabe laughed softly. “Last night Dad said your mom was nothing like he expected. He said it all reverent.”

“
Reverent
,” Corpse said.

She craned around to look Gabe full in the face. Their eyes had a conversation:

Corpse: Do you think?

Gabe: No way.

I tried to remember myself ever saying something not sad
.
Anything.

The rippling water caressed the ice. With each touch, did the liquid become ice or the ice become liquid? The water's sound seemed to be millions of gentle conversions. Corpse let her mind ride that sound, and her consciousness drifted downstream.

“There's no rush.” They'd been quiet so long, Gabe's voice seemed foreign.

“It's too cold today for runoff,” Corpse said.

“I meant us. To do it.”

“Oh.”

“I want it to be right. Perfect.”

“I'll never be perfect,” Corpse said, and her smirk, I knew, was for me.

“Okay. But you know what I mean.”

“I'm nervous, Gabe.”

“Me too. Maybe it'll turn out all I'm good at is soccer.”

Corpse sat back. “Or me at science.” Nine months we'd been dating. Roberta's men crowding around that pole with dollar bills lifted in their fists formed in her vision. “Gabe, how have you put up with me all this time?”

“Not sad
.”

They watched the river again.

“There's one more not sad thing,” Corpse said.

“What?”

A blue jay landed on the creek's bank and hopped along the snow, leaving tiny
V
s. It pecked at something Corpse couldn't see. “Dad and I are going to Portugal for spring break.”

“Portugal?”

“It's where he's from. When he was ten, his parents died, and he was sent here to live with his uncle. Gabe, I think this is what's killing my family. The key to what killed me.”

Gabe pursed his lips and stared ahead, seeming to calculate things far down a chain and then back up. “He agreed to this?”

“He didn't say no.”

“So you're making him return to the scene of the crime? Face his fears?”

She shrugged.

“How are you going to do that? Take him to where his parents died? Make him stand on the spot and relive the agony?”

“I don't know.” She slouched. “I haven't thought that far ahead. Maybe this is a big mistake.”

Gabe pulled her closer. “I just don't want you getting hurt any more than you already have been. My mom … for the longest time, I kept thinking she'd come back. Back here to Crystal Village. That her love for me would draw her home.”

“Gabe—”

“It's fine now. Maybe your dad can change, but … ”

“But what?”

“That night of your … suicide. His face. It wasn't right.”

“I was dead, Gabe.”

“I know, but … ” He rubbed his eyes and she could see words crowding to flow out of him. “Never mind. We were all whacked out.”

“What, Gabe? What did you see?”

“I'm not sure. He was … well … not
normal
. He started speaking a foreign language. Which is fine, except his face was all weird. He was … having an argument … with himself. He shouted. And his eyes. I don't know, Oona. He lost it, I think.”

Corpse eyed the frozen river. She couldn't picture Dad shouting, yet heard his fist rattle the silverware. Saw his strange nodding.

“Sometimes,” Gabe said, “I think it couldn't have happened. But when I see him, it's there, between us, and he seems embarrassed. No, not embarrassed.
Confused
.”

“Maybe this trip will be a disaster.”

Gabe opened his mouth to speak, but Corpse put her finger over it and kissed his dimple.

“He's my dad. He loves me.”

“Your mom's not going?”

“Something not sad,” she said.

Gabe pulled his arm from around her, took her hand in his warm grip, and slid both their hands into his pocket. The river's muted rush took over the air.

“There's great soccer in Portugal. You should go to a game.”

“Okay. Dad watches soccer all the time, you know.”

“The man's a mystery.”

“That's for sure.”

“I love you,” Gabe said.

I heard Ash's accusations, but Corpse leaned her head on his shoulder. She glanced at me like
Come along
and said, “Blimey!”

“What?” Gabe said.

“I love you too.”

Gabe turned to her. “Really?”

“Really.” She spun and took his face in her hands. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Wow!” His grin was priceless.

Twice, those words. Now, and to Dad. Not the end of the world. In fact, it was nice. Corpse seemed to hear me. She kissed Gabe. “That's for all the times I didn't say it before. And so you'll know it across an ocean.”

The river's murmur took over again. He touched her coat in the place where her heart necklace rested against her chest. He put his arm around her, she returned her head to his shoulder, and he rested his cheek against her hat.

“Gabe, I've never really asked you what you want to be. When you graduate, I mean.” She hated the gaps in her knowledge of him.

“A doctor maybe. Or a physical therapist, like with a professional soccer team. But professional soccer first, if I'm good enough.”

“I can't even think about college till I fix my family.”

“Fix?” Gabe said. He pressed his lips, and I felt rotten for the piece of me I saw in his eyes. I'd always considered myself smarter, better than Corpse. Lately, I doubted that.